Kudankulam is an extremely safe plant

March 14 2012

Combined reports

Dr. K. Balu, former Director for Nuclear Recycling and Waste Management, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, assures the safety of Tamil Nadu’s Kudankulam nuclear power plant and highly estimates the quality of the Russian-built reactors.

Following the event on March 11,
nuclear scientist Dr. Balu said to journalists that the Tamil Nadu’s Kudankulam
plant has extremely safe reactors, with extra safety provisions.

"It’s an extremely safe plant,
which has been designed and built to the current standards of safety. In fact,
it is known as a third generation plus (3G plus) reactor. That means the safety
features involved in Kudankulam are as of today, they are the latest ones,” said
Balu.

Balu reacted to building
of two Russian technology reactors at the Indian nuclear power plant of
Kudankulam by saying that the Russian science is of the highest order in the
world.

However, the Fukushima
incident in Japan resonated in many countries and aroused the fear of nuclear
waste among their residents. As a result, in the aftermath of the technological
disaster, several nuclear projects across India, such as one in Jaitapur in
Maharashtra, had a hard time facing massive protests of the locals and
activists believing that such plants could have negative impact on the environment.

But Balu pointed out:
“Fukushima is an isolated incident where there was a very unusual combination
of natural events, apart from the fact that it was a very old reactor.” He
emphasized that after the initial strong reactions subsided, all those
countries where anti-nuclear protests raged became sensible and are going back
with their nuclear programmes.

The scientist also
noted that there is a lot of misunderstanding as to what constitutes waste from
a reactor. He said that even though some material gets contaminated, there are
technologies to remove radioactivity both from the liquid and the solid, which
have been used in the country for the last 40 years.

“Solid waste can be
compacted or incinerated,” explained Dr. Balu. “There are also a number of
technologies for decontaminating liquid water such as chemical treatment, iron
exchange, evaporation, reverse osmosis.”

Kudankulam is regarded as an essential
power project for tackling electricity shortages, which have impeded the economic
growth of India. At the moment, there are 20 reactors in operation in six power
plants, generating over 4,000 megawatts of electricity, while five other plants
are being built.

Set up in the
framework of nuclear collaboration between India and Russia, the Kudankulam nuclear
power project also was approved by former Indian President and eminent nuclear
scientist, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.

Mr. Abdul Kalam had
vouched for the plant’s safety standards after personally visiting the site to
check the existing mechanisms.